Commissioned by Kingston CCG, delivered by Your Healthcare CIC Rapid Response Nurses in partnership with London Ambulance Service. This successful winter initiative has now finished.

In autumn 2014 London Ambulance Service (LAS) and Your Healthcare CIC (YH) developed with the Kingston Clinical Commissioning Group a pilot service with a LAS rapid dispatch car manned by a London Ambulance Service Paramedic and a Rapid Response Nurse with advanced clinical skills.  The service was created to offer an alternative service to an ambulance dispatch for adults with particular needs where it was believed an A&E attendance or hospital admission could be avoided.

The service is able to not only see and treat people in their own homes but can refer into YH integrated adult community health and social care service which includes community nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, rehabilitation, the falls service and home care support.

The pilot service commenced in mid-October and ran for 6 months.  It is currently on hold pending review. 

Early indications suggest that, in line with other similar services in the West Midlands only a quarter of calls into the pilot service have required a visit to the local hospital whereas if calls were managed through ambulance dispatch circa 70% would be taken to A and E. This has significant implications for supporting reductions in A and E attendance and therefore pressure on hospital services. Over half of the calls received so far were for people who had had a fall.